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Pretty much all the ugly stuff happened in Asia during WWII don't get remotely enough attention because everyone focuses on Hitler and the Jews.

Rape of Nanjing. There were several movies about it, the most recent one being The Flowers of War. They were mostlt put off as Chinese propaganda by Western and, by a larger extent, Japanese media.

Unit 731. The human experiments were so horrible that even the Nazis were disgusted. The worst part was the they were pardoned by the US in exchange for their experimental results. Yes, it contributed greatly to the advancement of Western and Japanese medicine. There's even a joke in China that says, "Buy Japanese drugs. Don't let our grandgathers die in vein".

Korean and Chinese comfort women i.e. sex slaves. Again largely underplayed by the current Japanese government.

Firebombing of Tokyo. It incinerated half of the city and allegedly killed more than one of the A-bombs. Again nobody in the US mentions it because they only remember the Pearl Harbour, Iwo Jima, Midway and Hiroshima.

Western civilians being interned the whole war by the Japanese under very bad conditions: Singapore, Dutch East Indies

Indonesian slave workers (Romusha) used under terrible conditions to build railroads for the Japanese. The notorious Burma railroad (the River Kwai railroad) killed over 13,000 other Allied prisoners, and perhaps 75,000 romusha.

There's a film on youtube of unit 731 if anyone is interested. Not for the faint hearted, the scene where they put him in the chamber and apply pressure into the room so he is crushed will stick with me forever

I can't believe that movie is on you tube now. I remember years ago trying to find that movie, had to resort to scouring emule for it. In fact any movie I couldn't find on usenet/torrent I could load up emule and find it.

On a vaguely related note, the Allied bombing of Germany was much more devastating than the Blitz was - see Dresden Firebombing. Idk how much you guys know about this, but it's not well known here in the UK.

Yes at the Evian conference (except for the Dominican Republic), but the US actually actively changed their immigration policies to keep out Jews specifically and turned away 937 of them when they had already arrived and were waiting in a dock 10 feet from safety

Even in the western world, certain details of WWII are glossed over, for instance, the bombings of Dresden. Vonnegut used it as the inspiration for slaughterhouse five, but other than that, not much attention is given to it.

I don't know about the incendiary bomb thing being unknown. It seems to always come up that the reason we chose Nagasaki and Hiroshima as targets for the bombs was because we torched the rest of the japanese cities to the ground. No one puts up round numbers, but i've always assumed most of the cities inhabitants were killed, or pushed out of the city by the carnage.

Martin Luther had bowel problems, meaning he was on the toilet a lot. During this spare time, he started thinking about the Church, and all the stuff he didn't like about it. So, he wrote the 95 Theses, which essentially started the Protestant Reformation.

We always hear about the successful explorers like Magellan, Francis Drake, Cook, Columbus, but I've never heard about the number of ships that left Europe to explore the globe and were never heard from again. We're there dozens, hundreds? I would like to know that history.

In those days crossing the Pacific Ocean from Europe was a massive achievement in its own right. Even the fact that he organised and lead the first half of a such an ambitious (and somewhat suicidal) voyage makes him worthy of great explorer status.

When the Allied forces liberated the Nazi prison camps, people incarcerated for homosexuality were not freed. They were sent back to the regular prison system for the remainder of their sentences.

The slaves that existed in America before Emancipation were often not enslaved by whites. Many African cultures had slavery, and would enslave prisoners of war during conflicts. European and American slave traders typically purchased their slaves off this existing African slave market. This was one of the reasons it was considered morally just to own African slaves, but not slaves of other ethnicities.

The Titanic was never considered more unsinkable than other ships. There was however a general overconfidence in modern technology, so lifeboats and emergency protocols were not really seen as necessary on any such ship.

The designers of the Titanic actually played it safe and made it with a capacity to hold 64 lifeboats, with plans for it to carry 48 on a typical journey, which would have been more than enough for everyone.

In the end they only put 20 on the ship because the extra boats made the deck look cluttered. They still thought they were playing it safe because that was four more than they were required by law to have.

The logic they used was that if anything happened to the ship, there would certainly be someone coming to rescue them well before the ship went under (the Titanic's hull was divided into watertight compartments, a new technology, so they thought that even in the event that the ship had to be abandoned because it was taking on too much water, it was very unlikely for the whole ship to sink). The intended strategy was for the lifeboats to ferry passengers to safety then come back for more.

Not many today know about the Congo Free State, run as a personal enterprise by King Léopold II of Belgium, who profited from selling cheap rubber to the other Western powers that he duped by creating the impression that it was a humanitarian project.

Unrealistic rubber quotas were imposed on the natives, and failure to meet said quotas was punishable by death. A chopped-off hand was to act as proof of a death by the Force Publique, and so villagers were forced to chop off the hands of women and children in order to pay off the remaining quotas.

And of course, 5-10 million people were killed, leading it to be termed as one of the first modern genocides.

To change it up some, the most under rated fact in history among many others was Microsoft bailing out apple in 1997. If that didn't happen, apple today might not be in existence, Blackberry would still be alive and well, and Microsoft would be competing against google as well as Nokia.

The investment was for that and the needed money as apple were making a slew of products that all failed. Either way it's looked at, Microsoft could have just walked away and fought off the antitrust image of the company (which probably in retrospect, they should have walked away as it still didn't really help their image as a monopoly even to this day).

The lawsuit however was quite ridiculous if viewed from today's perspective. It would as if apple sued google because they copied the look and feel of ios with android.

Ten percent of 1.2 billion was still big money back then. Back when steve jobs came back as inter-rim CEO, the company was at it's lowest point and was thought it would go under. They weren't making too much money to go on and make the new generation of macs and later the ipod as well as itunes.

The Australian genocide committed against the indigenous inhabitants (e.g. they were wiped out systematically in one state, Tasmania) and it's still not commonly acknowledged among Australians (the appalling Stolen Generations is however pretty ingrained in the collective public consciousness) and I don't think it registers in world history when people think of worst colonial legacies.

That the American labor movement was more than just strikes, there were massive gun battles between the unions, company mercenaries, and government troops that involved thousands of combatants and left hundreds dead. In West Virginia, there were even fucking air raids. So many kids in school roll their eyes when they reach the chapter on industrialization because "it's boring", and when their history books gloss over what was basically a full-scale uprising against the US, you can hardly blame them.

The Labour movement was badass. In Ireland, during the war of Independence and civil war, numerous small soviets popped up and they fought the British and both armies of the civil war as well as the police and mercenaries. Nearly entirely overlooked in schoolbooks because there was so much other crazy shit going on and they lost their revolution. All you hear was that there was a military organisation in the initial uprising and nothing else yet.

Yeah, here and here and another on the Limerick Soviet, the most well known of them. They're all from one blog, but it looks like it's got decent sources and documentaries from youtube (though Irish with subtitles).

Yeah. In fact, the Blair Mountain miners were so afraid that the company would try to confiscate their guns, that they hid them in secret caches throughout the hills while they were retreating. And it was more than just one point in history; black soldiers after the Civil War used guns to defend themselves from the KKK, and later in the 1960s, the Black Panthers armed themselves to keep racist cops at a safe distance while they were shouting legal advice to members being arrested. So weird that the right-wingers have hijacked American gun culture so badly.

The story of Sybil Ludington. She also rode a midnight ride with Paul Revere, though she is less known due to her gender. She is credited with alerting as many as twice the amount of people as Paul Revere did.

True, I think most of Liberia and the train of thought that led to it is skimmed over in American history classes, I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that we've long had a "51st state" in Africa.

I just can't help wondering if lots of former slaves weren't better of in Liberia.
I mean in the US it would be another century, roughly 5-6 generations, of being second grade citizens where back in Africa they'd be far away from home and family but they at least be free.
Anyone have some info on this?

The key role played by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal in initiating and sustaining the entire era of European exploration of the world.

Without him, the modern era we live in might very likely not have happened at all. Chinese exploration under Zheng He was stillborn, and Europeans would soon have had their hands full dealing with the Turks, who had already conquered Constantinople within Henry's lifetime and were on the move into Europe.

By contrast, Columbus was rather less of a key figure, because someone else would inevitably have discovered the New World within a few decades anyway. Most likely the Portuguese themselves: in their voyages they had already rounded the southern tip of Africa four years before Columbus, and they were already taking very wide swings into the mid-Atlantic prior to heading back toward the coast of Africa, and thus would have discovered Brazil sooner or later (as they in fact did in 1500).

The impact that a person has in history is best measured not by merely being the first to do something, but by what would have happened if they had never lived. By this measure, Henry is one of the most important yet least known figures in history.

It was, the army that burned Washington was dispatched from Britain after the defeat of Naploeon.
From wiki "Throughout the history of the United States, the UK is the only country to have ever burned the White House or Washington, and this was the only time since the Revolutionary War that a foreign power captured and occupied the United States capital."

I was under the understanding that the Vikings in North America was still hypothetical. It seems to fit, and there is similarities in artifacts, but it has never been definitive. The artifacts could have been brought there by other means. Has there actually been evidence of a settlement found?

That whole line of discovery has been fraught with lies and misrepresentation, so it's tough to just believe it all.

I'm not an expert here at all... This is just what I've heard. The presence of artifacts means that the artifacts were here (assuming they're real; there's been a lot of fakes), and could have been brought here without the Vikings making it this far. Maybe by washing ashore, by natives going somewhere Vikings were and bringing it back, etc.

The point is, my understanding was that Vikings in North America wasn't fully supported or accepted, and still hypothetical. I'm open to being wrong though.

I'm not too sure really, but from what I've read there have been Nordic ruins found in Greenland and Canada. Plus Leif Erikson's discovery of Greenland has been recorded in some sort of chronicle. Though I'm not sure of the name.

In my high school we learned a lot about the Native American genocide, but what they didn't even touch on is Native American civilization and how complex it was. They still act like it was a bunch of nomads in tents that were too primitive to stand up against European conquerers, instead of a group of many large, complex civilizations that were killed with disease.

Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns (some covering hundreds of acres and containing thousands of people) with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.

The idea for the US senate and house was based on the 5 tribes of upstate NY government. I believe it was called the Iriqois Confederacy. Very interesting, one great source for this topic is a book titled 1491.

For a brief period of time, maybe 8 years, there were two Tzars in Russia. They were both sons of the previous Tzar, but from different wives. Both brothers represented differet sides of the Slavophile v. Westerner debate, whether Russia should stick to it's roots or to adopt policies and social standards of Western Europe and become more modern. The brothers were Peter the Great and Ivan V, but they were too young to actually rule the country propperly. As a solution, the aunt of these boys, a water-buffalo of a woman named Sophia Miloslavsky was te regent, secretly ruling the country. The brothers would sit in their thrones that were in front of a felt sheet. She would stand behind the sheet and wisper to the brothers what to say in diplomatic-type situations. Good times.

The Warsaw Uprising was probably the largest single operation organized and executed by a partisian organization in World War II. It lasted two months, and when it was over, 200 thousand people were dead, and the entire city was in ruins. In trying to achieve its goals, the uprising was a terrible failure. In showing the courage and the dedication of the Polish nation, it was a remarkable success. Warsaw's insurgents totaled an estimated 40,000 soldiers (inc 4,000 women), but had only enough weapons for 2,500 fighters. The Nazi's had 15,000-strong German garrison (which grew to a force of 30,000), armed with tanks, planes, and artillery. They were seriously fighting against the odds.

Everyone thinks the Poles and Jews stood by while their city got flattened. They fought to the death, and held out against a FAR greater force while hemmed in on all sides and using largely homemade guns, grenades etc., while their city was razed as a show of power. They got screwed over by not only the Nazis, but the Russians and even the Brits in political/strategic moves.

If you ever visit Warsaw and are into history, I highly recommend you take a day and visit The Warsaw Uprising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego). Unbelievable museum, one of the best I have ever been to. Huge, filled with artifacts and data and there is so much in there you can easily spend a day learning. Not always the easiest or most comfortable experience, granted, but you wouldn't expect it to be either.

The execution of over 20,000 of the Polish Officer Corps and Polish police forces by the Soviet Union in the Katyn forest.

Pretty much most of the millions of people tortured, disappeared and killed by the communists in Russia during and for a long time after the war are mostly forgotten in Britain. It always disgusts me that some people in the UK will wear communist logos or display soviet banners giving what atrocities it represents.

Really, it always disgusts me that the average person thinks of Hitler as a monster and forgives Stalin and its sequitur because "Hey, at least they helped take down Hitler".

What Hitler did was unforgivable, but what the communist party did during their entire rule is something so stomach-churningly disgusting that it should be printed in red bold letters on every single text book.

Stalin himself was one of the biggest sociopaths to ever put a foot on this planet.

Eamonn DeValera, one of Ireland's first prime ministers, escaped from prison in England by burning the shape of the cell key in a candle and sending it to the IRA, who made a real key from the imprint.

When his collaborators got him out of prison, they disguised him as a prostitute and he returned to Ireland to help with the war against Britain.

Too bad when Ireland got independence, he became the church's bitch, and helped turn Ireland into the backwards shithole it has been for a good chunk of the 20th century.

The Zimmermann Telegram. Basically, in 1917 Germany tried to strike a deal with Mexico to join the Central Powers in WWI in the event of the United States entering the war. In exchange, after the war was won, Germany was to give Mexico certain US territory that had previously belonged to Mexico such as Texas.

The firebombing of Dresden by the US and England. With the war over the Allies killed more people in one day than both nuclear bombs combined, over 400,000 dead. Dresden had absolutely no military presence or significance, the dead were mostly women and children by the end of the war most of the German males were gone. The US tried to hide this from the public for years. Kurt Vonnegut was present at the bombing, his famous book Slaughterhouse Five was based off of his experiences there.

The death toll was nowhere near 400,000. Local authorities at the time said it was no higher that 25,000 and a study done by the Dresden Historians Commission in 2010 confirmed this. It was a completely unjustified bombing, but not up there with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. TelegraphWikipedia

Death toll was around 25k. Also, after all the shit the Axis did prior to that, both Japan and Germany should feel lucky they even had a country left. Believe me, if the Axis won, there would be no France, Britain, USA, etc.

Not exactly. Yes, more people died under his reign as a direct result of his actions than under Hitler and Stalin. However, he didn't kill them. They died of starvation because of a failed economic policy.

“From the biography of Mao, which I trust … I can now say that yes, Mao’s policies caused the famine. He knew about it from the beginning,” Rummel said, adding Mao even “tried to take more food from the people to pay for his lust for international power, but was overruled by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members.”

“So, the famine was intentional. What was its human cost? I had estimated that 27 million Chinese starved to death or died from associated diseases. Others estimated the toll to be as high as 40 million. Chang and Halliday put it at 38 million and, given their sources, I will accept that,” said Rummel.

When German king came to Serbia for a visit regarding the marriage deal between the two countries, during dinner Serbians ate with forks and knives while Germans ate using only their hands. some say that Germans even felt uncomfortable seeing that way of eating not polite

That Mark David Chapman was so crazy that when he was arrested, he thought nothing was going to happen to him, so he looked at the officer and said "when I get out later tonight I wanna buy you a drink"

Source: My father and his friend were police officers at the time and said friend was the arresting officer.

The Battle of Wizna. September 7-10, 1939, between the forces of Poland and Germany during the initial stages of Invasion of Poland. Under 720 Poles defended a fortified line for three days against 42,000 Germans.
In terms of additional weaponry besides basic hand firearms the Poles had no tanks nor air support, Six 76 mm guns, 42 MGs and 2 anti-tank rifles. The Nazis on the other hand had 350 tanks, 657 mortars, guns and howitzers... and aerial support.